Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic <\/p>\n
It was only training camp, but Diane Richardson already could sense that everything had started to click for Jonquel Jones. <\/p>\n
The Liberty star \u2014 healthy entering Year 2 with the superteam after navigating a stress fracture to start 2023 \u2014 was \u201cin her bag, so to speak,\u201d and she could sense that optimism oozing through their calls.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just months earlier, Jones \u2014 who scored 22 points in the Liberty\u2019s 93-80 win over the Los Angeles Sparks \u2014 had experienced WNBA Finals heartbreak for the second consecutive season. <\/p>\n
It happened with the Sun in 2022. <\/p>\n
One year later, against that same Aces team, it materialized a second time. <\/p>\n
She\u2019d gotten so close \u2014 twice \u2014 only to watch both chances slip away, Richardson, the Temple head coach who was Jones\u2019 legal guardian while also a coach, told The Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That gave Jones a \u201crenewed interest.\u201d <\/p>\n
There was progress to build on from the second half of the campaign and something, again, to build toward. <\/p>\n
She played in China and served as a focal point of that offense. <\/p>\n
She dug into the Finals film and realized that there were open 3s she needed to take. And that all laid the groundwork for the perfect scenario for Jones to attack defenses from \u201cdifferent levels.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
There aren\u2019t concrete ways to quantify comfort and cohesion within a system, but if any existed, Jones\u2019 number would be higher \u2014 significantly \u2014 than a 2023 campaign during which she averaged 11.3 points and 8.3 rebounds.<\/p>\n
The statistics suggest a similar trend, too: Jones\u2019 16.8 points per game mark her highest since her MVP season with the Sun in 2021. <\/p>\n
Her revamped 3-point shot (43.3) hasn\u2019t been this high since 2018. Her field-goal percentage sits No. 2 in the league.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And after a difficult transition last season, Jones has filled a more prominent role in the Liberty offense through the first 15 games entering Thursday against the Sparks, with the resurgence in points, assists and 3s igniting the next evolution of the Liberty offense.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEven on the shots that I made, I looked a little bit hesitant,\u201d Jones said of the series last year against the Aces, \u201cso I wanted to come into the season and make sure like whatever shot I shoot, I\u2019m gonna shoot it like it\u2019s going in.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Beyond those 3s, Jones has created an effective pick-and-roll option alongside Sabrina Ionescu. <\/p>\n
That could lead to handoffs. <\/p>\n
To Jones orchestrating the offense\u2019s next moves. <\/p>\n
To Jones rolling and converting a layup. To Ionescu, depending on the defensive coverage, driving to the basket.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Liberty have used Jones for ball screens more often in 2024, head coach Sandy Brondello said. <\/p>\n
That happened midway through the first quarter against the Aces on Saturday, when Jones, en route to a career-best 34 points, collected a toss from Ionescu after a screen, faked a 3-pointer and dribbled to the left block for a layup. <\/p>\n
Active cutters scattered around the court help with opening up avenues for baskets after the screens, too, Ionescu said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s really familiar with [other Liberty players] and feeling like in the groove now,\u201d Richardson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brondello pinpointed the All-Star Game last year as a turning point, when she could tell that Jones was starting to get comfortable and understand her role within the offense. <\/p>\n
Jones closed the year with eight double-doubles after the break, before topping 10 points and 10 rebounds in each of the Liberty\u2019s first eight postseason games.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those strides have carried over in 2024, with the assists jumping to a career-high 3.0, too. Jones can flip a no-look, underhand pass to Leonie Fiebich for a 3. <\/p>\n
She can thread passes off the pick-and-rolls. <\/p>\n
Jones has learned the spots teammates occupy on offense \u2014 a stark difference from this point in 2023, when three new starters were adjusting on the fly \u2014 and facilitated successful possessions when she\u2019s not the one taking the interior shots and 3s.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI have always called her the best offensive rebounder in the world,\u201d Sparks head coach Curt Miller, who coached Jones for all six of her seasons in Connecticut. \u201cShe\u2019s really talented with her back to the basket. But when she shows her versatility of making 3s, makes her a really, really difficult matchup.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
This version of Jones has resembled the one who earned all but one MVP vote in 2021. <\/p>\n
These have been the contributions that the Liberty were missing in game No. 16 last year, too. <\/p>\n
The Liberty haven\u2019t changed much, Brondello said, besides getting her additional touches inside and outside the paint.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd JJ\u2019s doing the rest,\u201d Brondello said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic It was only training camp, but Diane Richardson already could sense that everything had started to click for Jonquel Jones. The Liberty star \u2014 healthy entering Year 2 with the superteam after navigating a stress fracture to start 2023 \u2014 was \u201cin her bag,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":134391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-134390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134392,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134390\/revisions\/134392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}